That's mainly down to a relative lack of brightness and vibrancy even at the top setting - there's a slightly washed-out feel evident in pictures and videos that had us hankering for the AMOLED alternative.

The screen's responsiveness also isn't quite up to scratch, with the odd command requiring a second or even third firm stab of the screen to initiate.

Underneath this 4.3-inch screen you'll find a row of four capacitive buttons for menu, home, back and search. It's arguable that the search button isn't strictly necessary, but we'll come to that in the Interface section.

Along the left-hand side of the Grand X you'll find the volume buttons, which fall nicely to finger or thumb, depending on which hand you hold the phone in.

Further down this left-hand edge you'll find the standard microUSB slot for charging and computer hook-up purposes.

The 3.5mm headphone jack and power button are exactly where you'd expect them to be - on the top-left and top-right edge of the Grand X respectively.

While some bigger devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, have wisely moved the power switch to the right hand edge to avoid over-stretching your forefinger, the smaller ZTE Grand X remains small enough that the top is still the optimum position.

For all these cosmetic concerns, one of the big things that makes the ZTE Grand X more desirable lies hidden from view.

Lying at the handset's core is a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor. What sets this apart from the vast majority of mid-range Android handset processors is the fact that it's dual-core.

Not only does the current Android OS take advantage of dual-core architecture to boost intensive tasks like HD video and web browsing, but app and game developers are also making use of it too.

As with the ZTE Grand X's display, this is a component that could be associated with high-end Android devices just last year, so its presence in a £189 handset is highly impressive - even if it's no longer cutting edge.

'No longer cutting edge' is the most that could be said for the ZTE Grand X's camera. At 5-megapixels, and with video recording set to an inexplicably low 720p, this particular component falls some way short of last year's top-end devices.

Along with the overall design, this is the single biggest indicator that we're dealing with a device that's been compromised to reach a price point.

One final, slightly troubling point to make about the ZTE Grand X in general use is that we had the device crash on us on three separate occasions over the week we had it. On each occasion it happened while the phone was asleep, and we could neither wake it nor restart it without removing and replacing the battery.

Of course, Android isn't known as the most stable of mobile operating systems, but stock Android 4.0 has seen a big improvement on other devices. It's something to bear in mind when considering a purchase.